The boy screamed echoing the screams of the thousands gathered around him, the screams of his mother as her fingers dug into his shoulder "'All systems, red alert!' Mark, take over!" the voice ordered; firmly, but calmly.

Mark found himself looking out of the eyes of the seven-year-old boy, observing, but unable to affect what was happening. Yet at the same time, he was in total control of himself. It was a very eerie feeling; like living in a movie.

"What's happening?"

"Looks like about half the people here are heading for the exits, screaming their heads off," he said, surveying the crowd about him as the boy stood in frozen paralysis. The boy's attention was still on his brother, but Mark found he could bend his own attention on whatever happened to be in the boy's field of vision. "The rest are just falling to the ground and having hysterics."

"Not surprising; that must be the worst of all possible omens. What are the priests doing?"

He looked toward the distant pyramid and distantly felt the boy's anguish. "They're dragging the body up to the altar, but I think the kid is already dead."

"Go forward a few weeks "

He found himself kneeling in the dirt with a rope so tight around his neck that it nearly choked him, one of hundreds of young boys roped together in a chain of sheer misery. He was filthy, sore, and weary, and utterly without hope. There was a place on his shoulder that throbbed and felt burned; he knew, with the boy's knowledge, that the Spaniards had branded him there with the mark of a slave.

He knew also that his father was dead, his mother a suicide rather than face a fate in Spanish hands.

The once-great city was in smoking ruins; about a hundred feet away from him was one of the Spaniards. He wrinkled his nose in distaste; he could smell the filthy, greasy, unwashed mercenary from where he knelt.

Uppermost in the boy's mind was the hope that this man would not want him. The man was known to have a taste for young boys. And that was the only hope the boy had; all the rest was despair.

"What does the boy know about the aftermath of the sacrifice?"

"The priests and the sorcerer-priests were unable to take the living heart from the sacrifice, and right after that the Spaniards made their final a.s.sault on the city," he said, after scanning the memories.

"But the priests swore that it wasn't the end; they cursed the Spanish and their faithless allies who had deserted them and gone over to the Spanish side; they said that since the cycle was left unfinished, it would hang over the invaders like a balanced stone, and that one day it would fall."

"Things left unfinished have a way of doing that," said the voice. "Okay, Mark 'there's no place like home.'"

He sat up, blinking. His mouth was dust-dry, and every muscle was stiff. "Wow "

"Double wow," Di answered, handing him a gla.s.s of ice water. "That's one of the clearest regressions I've ever encountered."

"G.o.d, it was like watching a movie when it wasn't like being there." He shook his head, trying to sort out the distracting double-memories.

"Now we know how you're tied into this," she said thoughtfully. "I knew it couldn't be coincidence.

Did you pick up anything on your way out?"

He considered all the slowly fading impressions, and grabbed what he thought was the most important. "It seems like that Burning Water guy I mean, the brujo-activist, here and now and the guy that was my brother are the same person," he said, carefully. "I don't know, that's just what it feels like. Like, that was something he has to complete, too. But that's crazy! That would mean that he's going to let his own people sacrifice him!"

"Maybe crazy, maybe not," she answered slowly. "The original felt very strongly that a voluntary sacrifice would bring the G.o.d to save his people. Every tradition I've ever worked with agrees that a consensual sacrifice has enough power to work literal miracles including your own tradition, my friend."

Days, weeks, even hours ago, that might have disturbed or even angered him, her lumping Calvary in with pagan traditions. Now, after having just spent several hours as someone who believed as pa.s.sionately in the truth of his G.o.ds as any fervent Catholic, Mark could not find it possible to be offended.

"So, you think they're going to try to complete what was interrupted?"

She nodded. "Uh-huh. And going for the same results, I'd bet given what he's been doing with the activists and the brujos. So; what's that tell us?"

"He's probably Mexican," Mark said, after thinking. "Or at least he came from Mexico; probably around April of last year, since that's when the first animal mutilations started."

"He probably isn't an illegal alien," Di frowned, thinking out loud. "That would hamper his movements too much, I think. Which means "

"Customs will have a record on him!" Mark said in triumph. "Di, we've got him!"

"Next time I say the show's over before we've got it in the bag, shoot me, won't you?" Mark said in disgust, shoving a pile of papers away in complete frustration. "I mean, how long have we been at this?"

"Two weeks," Di replied wearily, reading another set of Customs records while she sipped her tenth cup of coffee for the day. "We're no closer than we were when I regressed you. And it's almost time for the next cycle. This is day one; you can bet there'll be blood tonight."

"What one was that?" Mark asked, wondering if there was some way they could pinpoint and stake out a probable victim.

"The Corn G.o.ddess thing. You know, mature woman, white outfit "

"Right; pick a woman. Could be any female in the city over the age of thirteen. s.h.i.t." He glared at the pile of file folders. "Look at this everybody and his brother was down there visiting Mexico about that time. Even Robert."

There was a crash of crockery, and Mark spun, startled. "Di are you "

She was staring at him, the shards of the cup at her feet, sitting so rigid and straight it looked like somebody had jabbed her with a needle in the rear. "Robert " she said slowly. "Before April nothing.

After April, the hottest photographer in Dallas. Before April, living in a roach-motel; after April, living like a G.o.d. A G.o.d, Mark. And those four gorgeous models of his entirely at his beck and call, serving only him."

"My G.o.d the four handmaidens? And we've always been like brothers my brother "

She reached down beside her chair and dove into a satchel of Xeroxes from some of the university books, and began to dig frantically through them.

She pulled out the one she wanted, and skimmed it while Mark sat paralyzed. "Oh G.o.ds " she moaned, "Mark, the other common name for Smoking Mirror is Burning Water and look at this!"

She thrust a page with a sketch from one of the codexes at him. On it was a glyph he'd seen before, on the door to Rob's darkroom.

One of the simple hieroglyphs of Tezcatlipoca, the caption read, the hieroglyph of Fire and Water, or Burning Water.

"My G.o.d " Mark choked out. "It all fits, G.o.d help me, it all fits!"

"Robert and Burning Water are the same the channel for Tezcatlipoca. That would account for those shields I sensed on him, and why he didn't much want to stick around me. And why his model avoided me; the deity could probably keep me off the scent, but there'd have been no way I wouldn't have sensed what she was. Mark, there's no other answer at this point."

"My G.o.d." He thought his mind was going in circles; it wasn't it was putting facts together too fast for him to follow. He only knew what was happening when it presented him with the answer to his earlier question."Oh my G.o.d Sherry "

She didn't need prompting.

"Oh G.o.ds " she groaned. "The Corn G.o.ddess "

Sherry set the last st.i.tch into the snowy huiple, knotted the thread and cut it. Her hands fell away from the completed work. The blouse lay on her lap, finished at last, and she could only stare at it, dull- eyed.

Okay, it's done. It's beautiful, no doubt about it; my best work to date. Now what? G.o.d, talk about all dressed up and nowhere to go The thing had come to completely dominate her life over the past couple of weeks, an obsession that strengthened every time Rob asked about it. She even had dreams of weaving. This last week she'd put off all her commissioned work, put off her clients, just so she could work on this And for what? Why had she done this? What on earth had possessed her?

"Sherry?"

The voice startled her out of her wits. She jumped and let out a little yip, half scream and half gasp, despite the fact that the voice was achingly familiar.

"Rob!" she snapped, twisting in her straight-backed chair to face the door, "I've asked you a million times not to sneak up on me tha "

She bit the rest of the sentence back when she saw that Robert wasn't alone. That he'd brought all four of his models with him, ranged behind him like acolytes with a priest, faces expectant.

"Is it done?" he asked, ignoring what she had said completely, and nodding at the huiple in her lap.

"Uh-huh," she replied, listening for the sounds of Bobby rattling around in the kitchen, and not hearing him. "Where's Bobby? He should be home from school by now."

"I told him to go to his grandmother's after school today," Robert said softly. "You and I need to talk."

Before she could react to that statement, he turned to Lupe and said something to her. It wasn't Spanish, that was for sure. Whatever he said, it was in some guttural language Sherry had never heard before, and it sounded like an order.

It was an order. Lupe smiled, threw a glance of veiled triumph at Sherry, bowed to Robert and turned to lock the door of the workroom just behind her.

That tore it. Now they were taking over her territory, her s.p.a.ce. That was it, she wasn't going to stand this charade another moment!

Sherry leapt to her feet, hot with anger. "Now just one d.a.m.n minute here! What the h.e.l.l do you think you're do "

"Be still."

Sherry blinked and found herself sitting meekly back in her chair, clutching the huiple.

She took a good look at him and realized that this wasn't the Robert she knew and loved anymore.

She looked at the girls, and they were looking at her the way Bobby looked at an ice-cream cone.

"Robert " she faltered.

Their expressions didn't change, and she felt her throat choke with fear at the sight.

She had had nightmares about this. This was obviously her worst fear come home to roost.

Whatever those girls had gotten Robert into had him good now and for some reason they wanted her as well. Or else they wanted her dead.

And she'd just thought she was being jealous and irrational!

Her head reeled, but she managed to hold to just enough calm to think a little. Without a single backward glance she abandoned seven years of marriage and all her new-won prosperity. If she could get out with Bobby and her life "Look, Robert," she pled shamelessly, "Whatever you want, you can have. Anything but Bobby. You can have a clean divorce, I won't contest, just leave me my workroom stuff and a little furniture, and a college trust fund for Bobby. No alimony, no child support, we can do fine ""I don't want a divorce, Sherry," he said in that deadly, gentle tone. "I want something far more from you."

She had a sudden, panicked vision of herself as the center of some kind of weird, orgiastic ceremony, and then flashed on Lupe holding a knife over her and stood up so abruptly that the chair overturned.

She backed away from them, stumbling over the chair; moving slowly, whimpering a little with fear.

"Please, Robert, you know I never hurt you, no matter what you did to me!"

"Sherry " He followed her.

She ran right up against the wall and flattened herself to it.

"Sherry look at me!" he ordered, seizing both her arms.

She did, completely unable to disobey the command in his voice.

She felt dizzy almost as if she were being drugged. His eyes were strange. Depthless. Glowing? It felt as if she was falling into them. And she couldn't didn't want to look away. Or escape. Her knees went weak, and she couldn't move.

"Listen to me Sherry " he slid his hands down her arms, took both her wrists in his hands, and pulled her back into the center of the room, where Lupe was setting her chair back upright. Some tiny corner of her mind screamed at her to resist, to fight but her body wouldn't obey her, and the rest of her mind was drowning in Robert's eyes.

He pushed her down into the chair; once there, she couldn't move.

"This is true, what I'm going to tell you," he said, with a power Sherry could almost touch behind his words. "When the Spanish came to Mexico, the greatest nation, the greatest empire, in the New World was the Aztec empire. They could have stopped him, but he lied to them, and told him that he was a G.o.d that was supposed to return, Quetzalcoatl. By the time they found out differently it was almost too late."

"But " she heard herself saying, as if in a dream, "they lost the Aztecs "

"There was one rite, the Tezcatlipoca sacrifice, that would have saved them if they had been able to complete it. It would have brought Burning Water down on the heads of the defilers and He would have crushed them like the insects they were!"

There was no doubt about it. Robert's eyes were glowing, down in the depths of them. A sullen, smoldering red.

"But those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds brought more than guns with them; they brought disease, diseases the Azteca had no defenses against. The intended sacrifice died of that disease on the very steps of the temple pyramid. The cycle could not be completed; the door was closed to Smoking Mirror, and he could not save his people. Until now."

She shook her head, not understanding his words.

"I am Robert. But since last April, I am also Tezcatlipoca. We, my handmaidens and I, have begun the cycle again but this time, it will be completed. When it is complete, Tezcatlipoca will be freed to enter this world in full power, and we will drive the interlopers back into the sea, giving the land back to the ones to whom it belongs!"

She believed him. She had to believe him; his will overwhelmed hers and crushed it to dust.

"But you don't need me "

"I do need you, Sherry. I am asking you to agree to what I, Robert, have already sworn to: to sacrifice this pitiful sh.e.l.l so that Tezcatlipoca can return and liberate his people." His voice was still gentle, but now it was persuasive. Very persuasive. "The sacrifice tonight must be a woman, a mature woman in the fullness of her beauty who has borne a child. And she must have made the garments she will wear at the rite with her own hands and they must be completely white, without ornamentation."

Lupe laid the huiple and wrap-skirt she had just finished on her lap. She felt her hands clutching the fabric involuntarily.

"Yes," Robert/Tezcatlipoca said. "Yes. Think, Sherry. Think what a little thing it is. Such a small thing, one life, in the light of all the suffering it would end. For the good of the people. Sherry. Think how much it would mean to those who suffer, who have suffered for so very long... fated to be the lowest of the low ever since the cursed Spaniards came. Everything was taken from them, they've been made hardly better than slaves. You can give it all back to them, Sherry."

He was so persuasive, and his eyes were so compelling. She felt herself nodding.* * *

The Ghia screamed into a parking place just outside the apartment complex; they were not going to warn Robert by pulling up to the townhouse. Instead, they pulled into the unguarded subdivision that ab.u.t.ted it, then found a place where houses screened the thick adobe wall that divided the subdivision from the complex. They weren't worried about being spotted; it was almost rush-hour time and this was yuppie territory. Both spouses were about to hit the Twenty-Mile Parking Lot, aka the Dallas-Fort Worth freeway, any kids were in after-school care, and that held for both sides of the fence.

The whole of the way here Di had been muttering something under her breath, eyes closed in complete concentration words like nothing Mark had ever heard before, yet which had a tantalizing air of familiarity. But he'd been too busy breaking every traffic law on the books to get to the townhouse if Di was going to call something up, he wasn't about to stop her, but he also wasn't going to be much help either. So he'd stuck to his driving, and let her do her thing The wall around the complex was of fake adobe, a good twelve feet tall and a foot thick daunting to punks, maybe, but not to Mark, who regularly worked out on the Academy obstacle course. Nor did it provide any barrier to Di for when he pulled himself up onto the top, and turned to offer her a hand up he found that she was already beside him.

He nodded, then, and they dropped down together with similarly soft thumps, finding themselves on the service road behind the complex.

Together they slipped onto one of the sidewalks threading the complex, headed toward Robert's town-house, strolling casually as if they belonged here, until they reached the last townhouse block before his. Then they took to the bushes planted all along the walls, sprinting across any open s.p.a.ces one at a time like commandos, ending up at the outer rear corner of Robert's place.

"Let me check the front to see if Rob's car is there," he said, as they eyeballed the back for signs of life in the privacy-fenced patio.